


He Keeps Avoiding the Question

by Dashiell_Mirai



Category: Emerson Lake & Palmer (Band), Keith Emerson (Musician)
Genre: A bit of surrealism, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Lots of Angst Actually, M/M, Not making sense is hard, so yes that's a lot of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:55:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23255803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dashiell_Mirai/pseuds/Dashiell_Mirai
Summary: It was portentously hot and dark out, that night. It was a good night for James to spend in bed with his Keith, alone together in a little corner of their little flat. It was a good night to dream.James had a bad dream. If only it was just that.
Relationships: Keith Emerson/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	He Keeps Avoiding the Question

That night was dark, hot, and silent, like a bucket of pitch had been upended on the whole of life. Spring was persisting, but with the threat of summer. 

My flat was cramped, and the stone tiles, cooled from behind by the pipes, sweat out in condensation. The narrow screen door to the even narrower balcony was propped open about a foot to my left as I stirred a pot of stew, propped up on iron spiders' legs curled in death above the gas burner. 

I wasn't wearing much, just my usual pyjama shirt, unbuttoned far more than was socially acceptable, and a pair of boxers. Coincidentally, both were striped blue and white, though in different shades and widths, and were quite loose, though they stuck to my skin in places with patches of sweat. 

"Smells good," remarked Keith, blowing into the kitchen relaxedly, like the tepid breeze from outside. 

"'S just potatoes," I mumbled, tapping the wooden spoon on the edge of the pot. "Mostly." 

He moved his head from side to side a little, making a face as if he were considering something. "Well, nothing wrong with, er, mostly potatoes." 

"Yeah," I conceded. 

Keith scratched his head absently. "Is it, er, is it ready?" 

"Hm? Yeah, yeah," I said, turning off the heat. Even more would've stuck to the bottom if I'd kept it going, which would've made doing the dishes an even bigger pain in the arse. "You hungry?" 

"Mm, I've _been_ hungry," he said, grabbing a bowl out of the cupboard for both of us. I took the pot out to the dining room, which was also the living room, and the music room, and just generally the room in which many things were done. 

There was a small bakelite clock on the wall, which read 10:25. It was completely right. 

I ladled out some stew for the both of us, and we sat down nearly simultaneously. The dark golden-varnished bench seat was always slightly sticky, but now it almost caused me to wince. I kicked my feet like a child on a swing, and they brushed against the cold-sweating tile floor. 

I was hungry, and what little was in my bowl disappeared quickly. "This is really good," remarked Keith quite genuinely. 

"It's _alright_. Again, it's mostly just potatoes," I countered. 

"Yeah, but it's got basil in." 

I smiled a little. "Ever the gourmand, aren't you?" 

"So I was right? It was basil?" 

"Yes. You're getting better at this." 

He smiled. "Well. La di dah and bon appétit to me, eh?" 

"No, I'm serious. Keep it up and you might just be able to boil water." 

He laughed a small, dry laugh. "Well, the joke's on you. I'll have you know I made pasta just two, er, two nights ago." 

I laughed easily back at him. "Oh, so _that's_ what that was?" 

" _Yes!_ " he laughed, with a healthy portion of mock-indignance. 

The bakelite clock then read 10:55, and both our bowls had been emptied twice. I scraped what was left of the stew into a tupperware for tomorrow, while Keith got elbow-deep in suds trying to do the dishes. 

I stuck him with the task, saying it was only fair, since I'd done the cooking, and he'd stuck me with a smile that said, "James, you cheeky bastard, are you really doing to leave me with this pot?" I fixed him with an apologetic look that said, "Yes, I am, but I'll make up for it," and went to go brush my teeth. 

The tiles inside the bathroom had sweat so much I nearly slipped. At least it was a little refuge from the hot night. 

I lay in our only bed, which was exceedingly cheap and creaked horribly, but at least it could fit the both of us. Cream-coloured, wrinkled sheets were strewn across it, and so was I, lying haphazardly, putting off getting into a more comfortable position. 

I stared out of the big, open window to my left. It took up half the wall, which was not saying much. The entire flat was cramped. 

Keith's upright piano he kept in the living room kept going woefully out of tune, as if it was hoping he'd smash it to bits and then it could finally get out of here. The bedroom, if you subtracted the bit the bed took up, was little more than a cupboard. 

The stars outside were barely visible, tiny white flecks of paint stuck in the pitch, drowning. 

Keith walked through the creaking doorway, his lean frame draped in the same slightly outsized white t-shirt it had been before. He bent down by the edge of the bed to plant a kiss on my left cheek. I sighed appreciatively. 

"You haven't shaved," he remarked, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "'S like trying to kiss a bloody cactus, I swear." 

I sat up, gave him a peck, and wiped my lips theatrically. "I'm sorry, the pot called? It's for you, Mr. Kettle."

"I told you I was, er, trying to grow a moustache," he said indignantly, which was slightly muffled by his shirt as he pulled it over his head. 

"Maybe _I_ am, too." 

He lay facing me, studying my face, my eyes. It was like being a butterfly pinned in a glass case, the first time he had done it. His gaze had been like eyelashes dragging over my skin. 

"I don't actually know if you'd look better with one," he mused, his voice close to me and vibrating imperceptibly in the bedsprings. "Well, I think you look fine without one," I said, kissing him without a hint of hesitation. 

Despite both of us being quite unshaven, his lips were still as soft as they'd ever been, his mouth more welcoming. I held his head between my hands, fingers locked gently in his soft chestnut hair.

I surfaced for air, briefly contemplating the sensitivity of my own lips, before going back to experiencing it.

"I could do this forever," I whispered between breaths. 

"Mm, forever's an awfully long time, James," he managed. 

My hand roamed down the curve of his left side, soft and smooth under my hand, and he shivered despite the heat. 

"That feels weird," he whispered. 

"Oh. Sorry. I was just trying to say that maybe you're right about forever." 

A smile lit up his face in the dim room. "Well, now that you put it like that, perhaps, er, perhaps I am." 

I pillowed my head on my upraised arm, propped against the pillow, just looking at him. His features and frame were delicate in an almost pre-Raphaelite way, structured as if by some great sculptor. 

"What are you doing?" he asked, with a slight smile. A smile was one of the few things in the world that could improve looking at him. I gave him one too. 

"Nothing. Just, you know. Looking at you." I kissed him lingeringly on the collarbone. 

"Mm," he sighed. "Why?" 

"You're so beautiful." Every word was said between a kiss, three planted down his sternum.

He laughed a small laugh deep in his chest. "Those rumours have been, er, greatly exaggerated." 

I didn't have the patience to correct him at the moment, my mouth filling his flat chest and stomach with nectar kisses, my hand pinned to his sharp hip by elastic. He was already moving in a rhythm, a rhythm which I knew well enough to move against in a rough syncopation. 

"God, Keith, you're so _good_. Just so good," I whispered, close to his pale skin hot with the summer night. 

"Nnh! At what?" he gasped. 

"Anything. Everything. And even if you weren't, you'd still be good, not even at something." 

I could tell he wanted to say something, but I was making it a little difficult for him, not that it wasn't difficult for me. I could feel myself inside of him as I had many times, but it was never the same. 

He was thrumming with his heartbeat this time. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was just a state of mind.

My hands formed sympathetic molds in the shape of him, the dimples in his back, the sides of his prominent hips, his shoulder blades that could've sprouted wings. He alternately cried and whispered my name like some sort of mantra, and I told him I loved him so many times it all just became too much. 

I spent that small sliver of heaven with him, holding him and his perfection as close as absolutely possible. We lay together when the storm had all blown over, my hand still on his waist, still stroking in a motion like a gentle wave in the sea. 

"James?" he asked, finally. The sound disappeared into the hot, stuffy night that had infiltrated our flat. 

"Yeah?" 

"I know you were just. You know. Saying that." 

I frowned a little. "What?" 

"All that stuff about... loving me." 

My hand stopped its motion, as much of its own accord as it had started. "I've told you I love you quite a bit. This is a bit of a funny time to bring it up."

"Ooh, well, alright, alright," he conceded. 

Still frowning, I looked out the window, Keith's head resting on my chest, looking the other way. The stars were even less visible than they were before. I went to stroke Keith's hair, which was feathery as ever, but slightly damp with sweat. 

"I mean, I'm not sure you quite understand what I've got to say, you know," he blurted. "You don't have to say you love me. It's not a big comfort or anything like that." 

"Why _wouldn't_ I say I love you?" I said, puzzled. 

He seemed to brush right past my question. "James. It's alright, yeah? You don't have to lie." 

"Lie about _what_?" I asked, a bit distressed by now. "Keith. Come on. I love you, and I would _not_ lie to you. _Ever_ , do you understand?" 

He was silent for a little. I watched him worry his bottom lip with his teeth. "Of course you wouldn't. Of course, yeah." 

"I love you," I said quietly. I tapped the side of his head. "Is it in there yet? Huh?" 

He laughed and lifted my hand away like a troublesome animal. "No, no, I know. Come on." His face flickered through a slideshow of little changes. "I think you definitely do love, er, insofar as we can love, really, and do I think you love what you see." 

I could feel the slight pressure of a frown come running back to my brow. "Well, yeah, I do. Because I see _you_." 

He pursed his lips, then relaxed them. "Actually, I, er, I don't think you do." 

My frown became a deeper set of furrows. "Well then, who in the bloody hell did I let move into my flat? I better not have hired a bloody piano mover for the sake of a home invader." It wasn't funny, but I was smiling, not entirely conscious. Not exactly sure if it was for my sake or his. 

"Well, I don't see how I'm supposed to know that, I mean, maybe I _am_ a home invader," he said in an oddly reasonable voice.

I stroked his hair lightly. "Keith, you're not making any sense." 

"I, er, yeah. Yeah," he mused, cutting off a sentence before it had time to fully realise itself. "But you know, it's just that there's a Keith Emerson who lives, er, up there," he said, looking, reaching, and pointing up towards my head, "and, well, he must be a very worthwhile bloke, considering what you've done for him. And some people get him, for some reason or another, but the real one," he tapped the side of his head, "isn't really all that nice to be around." He was facing me now, still lying in bed, still lying next to me. 

My face moved to being almost indignant. "What?" I shook my head. " _Nearly a year_ , Keith. You think you've got some sort of Dr. Jekyll in you that I haven't seen in all this time?" 

"Nah, nah, it's not, it's not like that. Of course I don't turn into some, er, some creature some of the time. I'm just not... well, that notable of a person, in my natural state. And that is _all_ the time, by the way." 

" _Not that notable?_ Last month you fell offstage riding a Hammond organ like a bucking bronco!" I protested.

His face began to change, stuttering like the pages of a book flipped forward so fast the words became a crawling, animated blur. Except instead of pages there were days, and weeks, and months, and years, and decades. I saw his hair grow curlier and lighter, his face grow softer, lines appearing after a little on his forehead, the outer points of his eyes. 

"Yes, I did do that, didn't I," he mused, looking lost in reminiscence. 

He was sitting on a piano bench, in front of a sleek keyboard in a black housing. It had a few little things, sentimental knick-knacks shadowed by dusty awards, sitting on top of it. 

The rest of the room was alien to me as well, but clearly familiar to him. It wasn't notably big or small, messy or neat, well or poorly decorated. It was, apart from him, quite empty. 

"Mari's just gone out," he said, as if by way of explanation. 

"Who's Mari?" 

He seemed to think about this for a second. "You don't need to worry about her." He gestured to an armchair next to him. "Please, sit down." 

I did. I then studied his face. His hair was curlier, or at least wavier than it had been before, falling round his face. It was brown, oddly reddish in some places, but looked mostly grey at a different angle. 

His face wasn't as sharp, but it was still mostly the same. His eyes, flanked by light lines, I could tell had the potential to smile, same as they always had, but they were dim. I'd seen it in him before, when I could tell he didn't think I knew. 

"What deal with the devil did you make to still look so beautiful?" I asked him, a smile coming to me. He did. He really did. 

"Oh, always the flatterer." 

"I beg to differ," I responded almost immediately. 

He looked up at me, irises as blue as always, reflecting flat white light from the window. "Oh?" 

"I've not flattered you a day in my life, Keith." 

He pushed a humourless laugh into the space of a breath. "You see, that's, that's how I _know_ you're lying." He played with his hair a little, scratched his head. "I'm not _him_ anymore. Or I am. I'm just me, really, sitting here and looking out at myself and the world as they've just... gone by, I suppose." 

"I still see you in there," I said in agreement.

He gave me a taut smile. "I mean, I'm just some old fart, James. And I'm still not very good to be around. But at least, er, back then I made some _cracking_ music." 

I nodded. 

"I've got an, er, a tour coming up."

"Oh, that's good to hear," I said brightly. 

"I've been rehearsing, of course. Every time I've tried to play this week it feels like my entire forearm is on fire." He said it so distantly, maybe even offhandedly in a horrible, heavy sort of way. 

"God, I'm so sorry." I didn't know what else to say. 

"Everyone always is," he said, matter-of-factly. 

I opened my mouth to say something, then realised I didn't quite know what would come out, so I shut it. 

"That happens, you know," he continued. "Getting old and useless. Although I don't know anyone quite so useless as me." 

"Even if you can't play," I protested, "it's alright. It's a shame but it'll be alright, won't it? You're still you." 

Another mirthless laugh escaped him, a little breath. "Well, that's the trouble, isn't it?"

He lifted his hand so that he could look at it. I looked at it too. His fingers had gotten more knobbly, but they were still the long, graceful keyboard-dancers I'd always known. Perhaps not so graceful, or just frightened— his hands were shaking.

"Cancel the tour. Or get through it, I don't know. You always were a stubborn bastard," I told him, my voice beginning to shake in sympathetic vibrations. "But it'll be alright." 

He shook his head. "It _hurts_ , James." 

"Then cancel the tour, for lord's sake, Keith! We're talking about the rest of your life." 

His eyes met mine and I could have sworn there were tears in them. 

He knew. He knew and he was avoiding the question. Damn him. 

When he spoke next, his words were quiet, mumbled, unobtrusive. 

"Are we?"

I woke up.

I did not wake up in a cold sweat, or violently pitching forward, gasping, clutching at my chest. I woke up, quiet and still, felt Keith next to me, and began to cry. It was the deeply inelegant, hiccuping sort of crying, accomplished with my face against his smooth, sleep-warm back. 

He grunted, and rolled over slowly, tangling and wrapping the sheet around his waist like an accidental skirt. 

"Mmh. James? Are you alright?" he asked blearily. 

"I don't know," I said eventually. "Are you?" I asked after a bit more consideration.

"'Course." He squinted around the room. "God, what time is it? Eight?" 

I nodded sleepily. The summer sun was already shining in through the slatted blinds. He made a few assorted grunting noises as wakefulness made itself known, and I lay across him, head on his chest, arm round his waist. 

"Keith?" 

"Mm?" 

"Please don't go anywhere, alright? Stay with me."

**Author's Note:**

> I really don't know if I should've written this. I ran it by multiple people who do get its significance, and they seemed to think it was fine, but I get the feeling that this was a deeply flawed concept to begin with, and there were therefore very few ways to get it right. I feel as if the way I've done it is distinctly not one of those right ways.  
> I know there's a debate in certain fandoms as to what counts as an acceptable and tasteful tribute to a deceased celebrity, and self-indulgent, self-insert fanfiction probably doesn't count.  
> Welp. I wrote it. That's my problem, but I have internet access and will therefore make it everyone else's.  
> ~Cheers,  
> Dashiell Mirai


End file.
